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Gluten free: PEAS FLOUR ROTI SKIN

Travel Story: ABOUT BARBADOS FOOD

Barbados, 2019

(versione italiana di seguito)

”Get busy living or get busy dying

I find i’m so excited i can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head

I think is the excitment only a free man can feel

A free man at the start of a long journey

whose conclusion is uncertain”

‘The Shawshank Redemption’

This describe exactly how i feel. As you know, i quit all the comforting security of my established life, at age of forty, with a one way ticket for the warm south. Despite lots of troubles the modern papers/money oriented modern world will vomit to me, i’m determinated to find, for me and my family, our ‘island’ of simple life.

ABOUT FOOD, PART ONE

When the first settlers, first Portuguese and later English, came to the island, it was uninhabited: its indigenous population had long gone extinct, for reasons unknown. So the culinary history of the place does not date back for millennia, as is the case with Mexico, for example. The gastronomic tradition of Barbados takes shape through the demographic blends and encounters of the various waves of occupation and immigration, from 1600 onwards: the English, the African slaves and the underwaged Indian and Pakistani workers, will all contribute, over time, to the formation of what today constitutes the explosive Bajan Cuisine— a colourful, spicy and extremely nourishing mix, rich in vegetables such as plantains, breadfruits, sweet potatoes and pumpkins. Here too, as in all Caribbean islands, rice accompanies most meals (usually mixed with peas, which here are brown), which is obviously not a local product, but one that was introduced by slave-owners to feed masses of African slaves with a cheap expense, and which has since entered the local diet, as in a great part of South America.

When you’re hungry do not search in a guide or on Tripadvisor. Look in the parking lots next to certain beaches (Accra Beach, for example), or in certain strategic areas close to big commercial establishments or offices. If you see a little truck with an open trunk, surrounded by a crowd of locals (don’t you be whining about an orderly line-up), you know you’ve found what you’re looking for. The aforementioned little trucks are equipped with a bain-marie and small oil-based stoves, to keep a surprising variety of incredible dishes warm, although you would have never imagined so much stuff could fit in such a small truck. Some of the choices include a dish of saucy chicken, grilled fish, mashed “English” potatoes, mashed sweet potatoes, roasted breadfruit, rice and peas, cabbage salad and coleslaw, and finally, the incredible (almost mythical, indeed, for the little Carboni children) Macpie, consisting of oven-baked maccheroni, condensed milk, ketchup and cheddar cheese— in other words, a beautiful abomination one cannot refuse to try. For an Italian, it’s like entering St. Peter’s Basilica during Christmas Eve mass with a penis-shaped mask while blaspheming against the entire Gregorian calendar of Saints— but the Carboni do not back down easily, and certainly not under the guise of a culinary puritanism. So, challenge accepted, fucking Macpie.

ROTI

Pretty ignorant as we are, we would have never expected to find Indian food and flavours in an island of the West Indies (perhaps the name should have prompted some incidental doubts). The hardly changed facial features of the Roti shops’ owners suggests how the Indian and Pakistani communities have preserved a certain unity, both in gastronomical and demographic terms, throughout their centenary permanence on the island. Roties are something like crepes, made of water, flour and vegetable fat (shortening), usually stuffed with stewed curry potatoes and spiced chicken, at times enriched with chickpeas. The two variants we preferred were the one stuffed stewed beef, always pleasantly spicy, and the one filled with stewed black belly goat, a rare species which is widely spread on the island (hens and goats scamper around more or less everywhere). Accompanying the roties, obviously, rice, fried plantains, Banks beer and Rum Punch.

RECIPE

We tried here a version or the roti skin made with local and gluten free flours. This particular recipe is gluten free, lactose free, high in potassium and protein.

1 cup of Breadfruit flour (you can use cassava flour or rice flour)

1/2 cup of split peas flour (you can use chickpeas flour)

4 tbsp of margarine or shortening

1 tsp of baking powder

a pinch of salt

water

Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl. Add one spoon of fat, working with your fingers mixing it with the flour to reduce it like breadcrumbs. Repeat for the other 3 tbsp of fat. When all the fat is added, start to pour in warm water, little by little, mixing with a spoon at the beginning and finishing with a whisk. You have to reach a pretty liquid consistency like a pancake mix. Using a ladle, pour the dough in a well greased pan, 2-3 minutes per side. Remember, there’s no gluten in this dough, so it will be easy to break: be kind and pay attention when you flip it. Let cool down the roti skin before to use it as they will be more solid.